The mystery behind the creation of Horcruxes in the Harry Potter film series has never been explained, but one theory might have found the answer. Horcruxes were a long-standing plot device throughout the Harry Potter movies, introduced as a technique to split one's soul into separate parts and house a piece of it in a material object. This was used to explain how Lord Voldemort survived being hit by the Killing Curse since he was the only known wizard to create more than one Horcrux. While Lord Voldemort created seven Horcruxes throughout his life, the actual process of creating a Gorcrux has never been revealed by Harry Potter's author.
In an interview with PotterCast, J.K. Rowling declined to reveal the full process of Horcrux creation. She stated that when she told her editor how it was done, "she looked as though she was gonna vomit." This reaction from her editor has forced Rowling to keep quiet about the true nature of Horcrux creation, though many have theorized about what horrific action would complete the process. It's known that an individual must murder another to begin the process of splitting their soul, but the method of locking that fragment of the soul into an object is still a mystery. One theory on the Scott Writes Stuff blog suggests the answer to the question of Horcrux creation in the Harry Potter movies is the act of love.
Horcrux Creation Theory Explained
The theory lays out three requirements for Horcrux creation in an effort to decipher what it could be: "It has to be something horribly gross... It has to be PG-13... [and] the act cannot physically harm/alter the corpse." These requirements address Rowling's silence over the act, the fact that it needs to fit within the child-friendly world of Harry Potter, and the fact that most of Voldemort's unfortunate victims had no signs of tampering after their murders. These requirements rule out popular theories such as cannibalism, self-mutilation, and necrophilia, which certainly isn't PG-13, meaning something else must be the cause.
From the information that is given in the Wizarding World franchise, four things can be assumed: souls can serve more purposes than just being split; souls are directly affected by the individual's actions; love is an extremely powerful act; the act of love would certainly affect the soul in some way. It can be assumed that the act of love would have the opposite effect as the act of evil. If murder splits the soul, then the act of love could bind it, so the theory poses that the act of a simple kiss could be the missing link in the creation of a Horcrux.
Kissing a dead body is very gross, yet it's PG-13 enough for Harry Potter's audience and would cause no harm to the victim's body. This idea, as disturbing as it sounds, becomes more believable upon further inspection, answering several unexplained questions throughout the Harry Potter series, including many decisions Voldemort makes during his reign as Dark Lord. If the missing link in the equation does in fact involve Voldemort kissing his victims, that would certainly explain why Rowling would avoid revealing the secret.
How The Horcrux Theory Answers Harry Potter Questions
The theory that a kiss completes the act of creating a Horcrux explains several aspects of Harry Potter that otherwise would have no real reasoning. For instance, the Dementor's Kiss, first introduced during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and explained as a way for Dementors to utterly destroy their victim, involves the Dementor sucking out their victim's soul with a kiss. The Dementor's Kiss is described as "nearly unbearable to witness," upholding the idea that this would be a horrific act, so perhaps Voldemort uses the Dementor's Kiss when creating Horcruxes, sucking out his victims' souls, bonding his soul to them, and casting a spell to seal it inside an object.
If kissing is how Voldemort creates Horcruxes, then the name of his followers, the Death Eaters, suddenly makes more sense. Perhaps Voldemort wouldn't want to explain the act of making Horcruxes as "kissing" his victims, as this would verge too close to an act of love, so he would instead refer to it as literally eating their death. On top of this, Voldemort's own Dark Mark is that of a snake coming out of a skull, and aside from this being an inherently evil insignia, the Dark Mark is the perfect perversion of a kiss: not a mouth with a soul wanting to bond, but one with a snake wanting to kill.
Why Harry Potter Is (And Isn’t) A Horcrux
Lord Voldemort didn't kiss the young Harry Potter on the night that he killed the boy's parents, but the theory of Horcrux creation involving a kiss also explains how Harry can be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. Harry became a Horcrux after Voldemort killed his father, James, and mother, Lily, at the end of the First Wizarding War in 1981. The act of murdering Lily Potter split Voldemort's soul, and while it wasn't an act of love between Voldemort and Harry that bonded their souls, it was the act of love and protection between Lily and Harry, as she sacrificed her own life to save her son's.
In fact, love was in spades on that fateful night, as Professor Snape discovered Lily's body at her Godric's Hollow home, and he expressed a huge amount of grief over her loss since he had been in love with her since their time together studying at Hogwarts. Snape's love for Lily probably sealed the deal, so while Harry wasn't technically one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, he also was, and he needed to die in order for Voldemort to be defeated, a plan that came to fruition during Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2.
This theory that suggests the missing link in Horcrux creation seems to come the closest to breaking the secret that J.K. Rowling herself is too afraid to share. The idea of Voldemort kissing his victims after their murders is certainly abhorrent, so it's probably for the best that it was never shown on screen, or even revealed in the novels. In any case, more theories will surely arise about what it actually takes to make a Horcrux in the Harry Potter universe.